soccer, school and baby steps

mason started taking piano lessons in august and it has been awesome!! i think he really surprised his teacher! she is impressed with how well he is doing and how fast he learns.  he is already just about to finish up his first level of books and start on the next and he has only been doing lessons once a week for about a month. call me crazy for paying someone to do something that i could do myself but mason and i are too much alike.  we butt heads when i try to help him practice let along me trying to teach him.  i'm super glad i found something to occupy his time that he loves and is excellent at and he has a really great teacher too :)

mason also started kindergarten the last week of august!!! any of you who know him know that he was beyond ready for this day! he has been doing great and made a lot of new friends.  he enjoys riding the bus home with is friends and sophie and brooklyn love meeting him down the street at the bus stop.  in the spring the school district rearranged their boundaries so our neighborhood got put into a school just a few blocks away instead of driving several miles like in previous years.  i was so happy about that especially after hearing all the good things i do about our new school.  so far we really like everything and i cant wait to see how the rest of the year unfolds!

 

 

 

mason's teacher sent us this picture in an email after the first day of school.  cutest thing ever!

 

after school had been in for several weeks they had an open house.  this is mason standing next to "himself" at his table. he showed us his journals and we loved them! he is so funny and creative and of course super smart! i have no idea what his pose is about though....

 

yet another thing we started was soccer.  i was really hesitant about this one for several reasons: 1. curtis works every saturday which means i get to drag all 3 kids to 2 soccer games by myself every single week (but he is home in time to help with practices during the week thank goodness!) 2. mason played soccer several years ago....he was the one out there chasing butterflies and cloud watching (not really but you get the idea).  we took a year off and he really wanted to try again. he is doing better but still doesn't focus on the ball.  he just has fun running around with everyone.  he played goalie his first game and did really good, making several good stops.  the second game he tried goalie didnt turn out so well.   good try buddy. sophie also wanted to play.  i have seen her with a ball and she is a lot more coordinated than mason and much more aggressive so i thought she would do awesome!  i was wrong. she  runs every direction except toward the ball and would much rather play with a dirt pile.  she has done some really good plays though and i think she will have it down in a few years.

 

sophie's team is the tigers

 

mason's team is the elemenators

as for little b, she is getting big too! she is 10 months old, just started taking steps and just had her 4th tooth break through today.  she never sits still. never. ever. its exhausting. she is always getting into trouble. she loves unplugging things (like night-lights), dumping the dvd tower over, pulling the books off the shelf, emptying out dresser drawers and pulling lids off dry erase markers that the kids leave out on our art easel.  she is super sweet, absolutely loves her siblings and get so frustrated when she cant keep up with them.  her favorite games are peek a boo and hide and seek.

 

 

mason just lost his 3rd tooth and he has a 4th one loose on the bottom!! i asked him what he would eat without any teeth and he said "ice cream!". :) i swear he looses a tooth and brooklyn gains it!

 

 

here are a few pictures from our latest zoo outing. we saw so many animals that we usually dont even see because they hide out. the sky was overcast. the temperature was in the upper 70's. there weren't very many people there. it was the perfect day for the zoo!

 



 

i think i covered it all for now! hopefully our lives will slow down a little after soccer season :)

tooth fairy time

mason was barely 4 months old when he got his first tooth.  we had taken him in for his well check and the doctor told us that was unusual but possible and was quite surprised when she opened his mouth and saw this....

 

5 years later, that very first tooth is now gone.  i'm a little sad that my boy is getting so big. 

 

so on to the story....

one afternoon last week we were having a fresh peach for a snack.  i had gone to help sophie in the bathroom and when i came back out mason ran up to me and showed me that his tooth was barely hanging on.  i couldn't believe it! i didn't even know any of his teeth were loose.  i told him to keep moving it so it would fall out soon. about 4 hours later after dinner, mason was eating a little chocolate treat.  i had gone into the bathroom with loaf again and as i was going back to the living room mason runs up to me with his tooth in his hand!! say what?! in 4 hours time he had gone from a perfectly normal smile to missing one of his pearly whites.  it was crazy but he was SO excited!! i tried to post the video of him right after he ate the peach but for some reason it had troubles uploading.  so that night he put his tooth into an envelope and stuck it under his pillow.  the next day he was just as excited to find a letter from the tooth fairy, some stickers and a couple of dollars in exchange for that his tooth. the tooth fairy was nice enough to let me keep his tooth to put in a journal i keep for each of my kids just as a little memory :)

love his bed-head in this picture!

 

 in other news, this little cutie is just about 8 months old.  man, has it been a tough 8 months.  b has always been pretty fussy and not a great sleeper...at all...but she is getting better. she army crawls to get where she wants and is starting to get into trouble.  the other day a few dvd's were scattered by the tv.  i thought the kids had been going through them and forgot to put them back. the next day i caught this little culprit red handed.  she hasn't pulled herself upright yet but she can get about half her body off the floor when she tries.  she still doesn't have any teeth which is a huge shocker!! she loves to squeal and play with mason and sophie and she loves bath time.  i think she looks a lot like mason did as a baby but her eyes are blue like sophies :)

 

 remember that beautiful dark hair she was born with? yeah its gone. i'm so sad about that.  i love, love, loved that hair. now its just about the same color as mine. 

here is a comparison....

 

 so sweet :)

 

 i just threw this picture in to prove to my kids that at one point in thier lives they loved each other enough to hold hands at breakfast :)

3,000 miles later...

we officially survived our first road trip with three kids! i have been dreading the idea of 23+ hours in the car with my 3 rugrats since we first planned our vacation. mason and sophie are great in the car but brooklyn is a nightmare.  a few weeks ago i had to drop mason off at a birthday party which was about 20 minutes away. b screamed the whole way there and the whole way back. i just knew this was a glimpse of what i was going to be dealing with on the way to utah.  when all was said and done, i was shocked.  b did so amazingly great!! we only had one or two crying episodes which didnt even last too long. and thank goodness we decided to go with a third row when we bought our car a few years ago. we would not have survived in a 5 passenger car. mason and sophie sat in the very back then i sat in the middle row with b to keep her entertained and fed.  ahh. sigh of relief that the drive went better than anticipated. the rest of the trip was awesome too.  we headed to st. george first and had swim/dinner get togethers with both sides of curtis' family. it was so great getting to visit with everyone, including family members who we haven't seen in several years.  as usual  the kids had a blast swimming. they are actually pretty good swimmers and brave with water so i just slapped on their floaties and let them go (with a grown up hovering nearby of course!).

 

 this is mason going down the slide with casey.

mason, sarah, and me

sophie and grandpa

curtis and his dad were throwing the kids into the pool.  they loved it!

you would think after two nights of swimming at james and michelles house we would be all watered out but no sir! we had to throw a trip to the lake in there too! it made me think of the times we have gone to lake powell with this great family. i miss those trips but this was close enough :) we ate lunch, played on the beach, went tubing and cliff jumping. it was so much fun! we are so grateful to the sullivans for letting us invade their house for the week and taking us to the lake!

 

mason, amanda and sophie

 

sarah, sophie and mason building sand castles

curtis and nathan

casey and sophie out on the boat

 this is mason, sarah, esther and curtis out on the tube. this was the first time mason has been big enough to ride and he was laughing and smiling the whole time. i keep kicking myself for not getting a video of it. it was so funny watching how much he was loving it. it still brings a smile to my face when i think about it :)

out on the tube with some of my favorite girls, amanda and sarah

 

 i didn't participate in cliff jumping this year but this is the crazy bunch that did.

 

 eventually our time in st. george came to an end. we left the kiddos with curtis' parents for the night so curtis and i could attend my sisters wedding in manti the next day.  i didn't get any pictures on my camera but it was beautiful! curtis and i got married in the same temple 7 years ago and we haven't been back since curtis' sister got married there a few months after we did.  it was great to go back for such a special event! i have only met my new brother in law over skype once but curtis' family knows him and his family from years ago and I'm super excited for the two of them. they had lunch at the same place curtis and i did then we headed back to cedar for the reception. although there were some issues, everything worked out perfectly in the end. it was great seeing the two of them so happy and i got the chance to talk with lots of family and members of my parents ward that i haven't seen since i got married. 

 

this is the kiddies with my mom and grandma

once we all recovered from the crazy wedding madness a few of us decided to take a mountain biking trip.  usually i stay home while curtis goes with my dad and siblings. this time my sister was on her honeymoon and one of my brothers had gone back to missouri after the wedding which meant there was an extra bike for me! i was nervous and i just about died but it was so much fun! curtis and i even had a coyote run across the trail in front of us which was quite a surprise. i hope i can go with them again!

 

a few other things lacking visual representation:

curtis went shooting with his dad and brothers. he also got in a round of golf with an old friend.

we had a dinner with all the adults in curtis' immediate family 

i went to lunch and a movie with my mother in law and sister in law

one of our good friends was celebrating her 30th birthday so we went to her party and caught up with our little group that we used to hang out with.

 

 

 this picture pretty much sums up our trip.  lots of adventures, to bed late every night, lots of laughter and love. 

 

 

until next time, we love you all and thanks for a great time!!